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As a belgian european I often wonder if the United States seems as big to americans as Europe seems big to me. I wonder if it feels different to be a citizen o

As a belgian european I often wonder if the United States seems as big to americans as Europe seems big to me. I wonder if it feels different to be a citizen of a small country or a citizen of a continent-wide country such as the United States. Or maybe americans feel they are californians or new-yorkers before being american ?

marknutter 13y ago
I would say the culture here is fairly homogenous, so most people feel like Americans before they feel like a citizen of their home state.
- mumbi 13y ago
  Unless you're from Mississippi raises hand
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Looking in from the outside, US culture is substantially less homogenous than Australian culture. Cultural variety arises from isolation. The US was founded sufficiently long ago that there was time for each region to establish distinct cultural flavours, in no small part contributed by waves of immigration being unevenly spread throughout the country.
- wreckimnaked 13y ago
  From my experience of meeting US citzens, even outside North America, it's fairly normal to get something like "Ohio", "Pensilvania" or "Wisconsin" when asking where they come from, as if I'd _of course_ know where those places are (I do).
daraul 13y ago
We're definitely American first, but we do generally have a somewhat strong sense of state identity as well.
dalek_cannes 13y ago
Citizen of small country adjoining a very large country here. People of small countries tend to understand that other cultures exist, because when they travel a couple of hundred miles (or less) in any direction they're in another country. I suppose for people living in the central regions of a very large country, it's your country and your people in every direction for as far as you can imagine. Then you tend not to be concerned too much about other cultures. But of course, I'm speculating here.
- ryusage 13y ago
  As an American in a relatively small Midwestern city, I think that's pretty much it. I'm interested in what happens elsewhere in the world, but it feels impossibly far away, and ultimately it doesn't affect me here (at least not directly). Whenever I've checked, a roundtrip ticket anywhere out of the country has cost about $2000 and it takes a full day to get there. Then you're jet lagged. So, short vacations are out of the question. But it also takes me a full year of work to earn just 2 weeks vacation time, assuming I don't use any for special occasions. I didn't even bother getting a passport until two years ago, and I still haven't used it. So yeah, even if an American desperately wants to travel somewhere out of the country, it's expensive and vacation time is scarce. So most never will. And at that point, knowing a list of English cities is purely trivia.
keiferski 13y ago
It's less by state and more by region. A rough "region guide" would include Northeast, Mid-west, South (geographic Southeast), Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, and the Great Plains. But this is a huge over-generalization and doesn't really include places like DC, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, or southern Florida, which have their own microcultures. People from the Northeast definitely feel differently than people from California.
officemonkey 13y ago
Having lived in both, the U.S. feels larger and also more homogeneous. When I lived in Belgium I was 90 minutes from Amsterdam, London, Paris and Cologne. In Chicago I'm 90 minutes from Milwaukee (if I speed.) There is a lot of state pride in the U.S. but not many people put their love of their state before the love of their country (except for perhaps Texas.)
rayiner 13y ago
I also imagine it has something to do with how much American culture is exported in the world. As a Belgian, you probably won't be able to go your whole life just watching Belgian movies and TV and reading Belgian books. But it's quite possible and I'd imagine very common to do that as an American.
- officemonkey 13y ago
  I don't know. A lifetime of Tintin comic books and "Septante et un" sounds pretty good.
smallegan 13y ago
To be fair, Canada and Mexico are also part of the continent :-) Although you did say continent-wide and the US does span the entire width...

marknutter 13y ago

I would say the culture here is fairly homogenous, so most people feel like Americans before they feel like a citizen of their home state.

mumbi 13y ago
Unless you're from Mississippi raises hand
jacques_chester 13y ago
Looking in from the outside, US culture is substantially less homogenous than Australian culture. Cultural variety arises from isolation. The US was founded sufficiently long ago that there was time for each region to establish distinct cultural flavours, in no small part contributed by waves of immigration being unevenly spread throughout the country.
wreckimnaked 13y ago
From my experience of meeting US citzens, even outside North America, it's fairly normal to get something like "Ohio", "Pensilvania" or "Wisconsin" when asking where they come from, as if I'd _of course_ know where those places are (I do).

daraul 13y ago

We're definitely American first, but we do generally have a somewhat strong sense of state identity as well.

dalek_cannes 13y ago

Citizen of small country adjoining a very large country here. People of small countries tend to understand that other cultures exist, because when they travel a couple of hundred miles (or less) in any direction they're in another country. I suppose for people living in the central regions of a very large country, it's your country and your people in every direction for as far as you can imagine. Then you tend not to be concerned too much about other cultures. But of course, I'm speculating here.

ryusage 13y ago
As an American in a relatively small Midwestern city, I think that's pretty much it. I'm interested in what happens elsewhere in the world, but it feels impossibly far away, and ultimately it doesn't affect me here (at least not directly). Whenever I've checked, a roundtrip ticket anywhere out of the country has cost about $2000 and it takes a full day to get there. Then you're jet lagged. So, short vacations are out of the question. But it also takes me a full year of work to earn just 2 weeks vacation time, assuming I don't use any for special occasions. I didn't even bother getting a passport until two years ago, and I still haven't used it. So yeah, even if an American desperately wants to travel somewhere out of the country, it's expensive and vacation time is scarce. So most never will. And at that point, knowing a list of English cities is purely trivia.

keiferski 13y ago

It's less by state and more by region. A rough "region guide" would include Northeast, Mid-west, South (geographic Southeast), Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, and the Great Plains. But this is a huge over-generalization and doesn't really include places like DC, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, or southern Florida, which have their own microcultures. People from the Northeast definitely feel differently than people from California.

officemonkey 13y ago

Having lived in both, the U.S. feels larger and also more homogeneous. When I lived in Belgium I was 90 minutes from Amsterdam, London, Paris and Cologne. In Chicago I'm 90 minutes from Milwaukee (if I speed.) There is a lot of state pride in the U.S. but not many people put their love of their state before the love of their country (except for perhaps Texas.)

rayiner 13y ago

I also imagine it has something to do with how much American culture is exported in the world. As a Belgian, you probably won't be able to go your whole life just watching Belgian movies and TV and reading Belgian books. But it's quite possible and I'd imagine very common to do that as an American.

officemonkey 13y ago
I don't know. A lifetime of Tintin comic books and "Septante et un" sounds pretty good.

smallegan 13y ago

To be fair, Canada and Mexico are also part of the continent :-) Although you did say continent-wide and the US does span the entire width...